Vicente: Repetition is training

Vicente: Repetition is training

TRADITIONAL martial arts confines simplicity and practicality, the generation of today perceive it is boring. Students always look for something new and amazing not knowing all the things they seek is attainable with dedication and devotion in training.

Martial artists, at present, cannot seem to understand why they have to repeat drills of techniques every training and expect to have new techniques every session even without mastering the previous lessons yet.

This is the difference with students before and today. Patience is a major virtue the latter possess compared to today’s generation of students which plays a major role in attaining the essentials of martial arts, as one martial arts master once said “work on your weaknesses until they are strengths; work on your strengths until they are second nature”.

Distracted and amazed by skills of others students which tend to want and be those people thus disregarding what they started and try to work on achieving a new discovery.

Aside from easily getting bored and distracted, students quit easily upon the first instance of hardship. Everything for them must be quick and easy but the repercussion is devastating as most skills achieved through these methods offer no second chances if these fail due to skipping fundamentals that could easily restructure everything once something went wrong in the achievement of any goal.

What you do in training is not just acquiring skills but embedding them into your being and character which comes out as an instinct as a reaction to whatever you will need it for in the future.

So to acquire skills, trainers should learn to cultivate patience first in order for their students to endure repetitions of techniques, making them understand that one technique perfected is better than a thousand poorly executed.

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